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Earlier this month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on the United States and its allies to scale up their funding for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment to “change the course of this pandemic and usher in an AIDS-free generation.” “No institution in the world has done more than the United States government,” Clinton said, praising President Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) for providing anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS around the world. She called PEPFAR “ one of the strong platforms upon which the Obama administration is building our global health initiative.” But new analysis published Tuesday on the Health Affairs blog from Matthew Kavanagh and Marguerite Thorp suggests that “funding to AIDS treatment has actually fallen significantly since 2008 in both absolute dollars and as a portion of total budgets—just at a pivotal moment when investment could change the course of the epidemic”: Taking advantage of decreasing treatment costs (as discussed more fully below), PEPFAR is continuing to enroll new people on ARVs—expanding support to reach 3.2 million people as of last year. Yet, enacting Clinton’s policy directive will require ARV access to expand much faster. In this context, reversing the decline in investments in treatment is critical —last year alone the funding could have paid for ARV access for nearly half a million more people. Look: According to AVERT — an international HIV and AIDS charity — funding for PEPFAR from 2009-2010, “was effectively flat-lined in contrast to the much higher previous year-on-year increases in funding, especially from 2006-2009.” “President Obama’s proposed 2011 budget included almost $7 billion for PEPFAR, representing a 1.8 percent increase on the previous year. However, according to some activists this slight increase actually represents a ‘step backwards’ due to inflation and increasing demand for treatment.” The FY2011 budget “included a 5 percent ($50 million) decrease in funding to the Global Fund compared to the previous year.” Kavanaugh and Thorp note that new studies are showing that providing anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment could “dramatically” lower viral load and transmission rates, allowing populations to “begin to control and ultimately end the AIDS pandemic.”

Tags: aids, author, barney frank, lgbt, media, november-2011, security, war

Today, nearly 2 million Britons who work in the public sector are on strike , including a large section of medical staff, to protest pension changes that would raise the retirement age and cut back on payments. The National Nurses United decided to picket the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. in solidarity. Here’s a picture from their march:

Tags: 99-percent-movement, donate, march-outside, november-2011, taxes, thinkprogress, today, tweets

EIA analysis finds that Senator Bingaman’s clean energy standard would reduce carbon emissions by 43% and lower GDP growth by just .02 percent. by Richard W. Caperton Imagine if we could create jobs, increase renewable energy generation, improve air quality across the country, and reduce our carbon dioxide pollution — all at effectively zero cost to our economy. Wouldn’t that be great? Well, the Energy Information Administration just informed us that we can do all of these things, by adopting a strong national clean energy standard. (In fact, as the map above shows, 29 states have already done so.) If you were to believe the hyperbole from the fossil fuel advocates, you would think that a clean energy standard would ruin the United States.  For example, the Heritage Foundation recently declared that a similar policy “ would be bad for families, bad for business, and bad for the economy. ” As I said at the time , Heritage was simply building a straw-man that isn’t even a serious clean energy proposal, and they weren’t actually modeling our electricity system. Fortunately, we now have an accurate study of a real clean energy standard proposal, and the EIA has given us some insight into how this policy could benefit our country. In response to a request from Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), EIA modeled a proposal to get 80% of our country’s power from low-carbon and zero-carbon sources . They allow all generation resources to qualify, and weight them based on actual carbon emissions (roughly, that means that natural gas only gets half of the clean energy credits of wind or solar power, for instance). EIA also models several different cases to identify the effects of specific policy choices, like including a cap on program costs or exempting some utilities from compliance. Here are the top line findings: Under the Bingaman clean energy standard, electricity generation from renewable resources like wind, solar, and biomass are almost twice as high as the business-as-usual case. The clean energy standard reduces annual carbon emissions from the power sector by 43 percent by 2035. GDP growth is virtually unchanged with a CES. With a clean energy standard, America’s GDP grows at 2.67 percent from 2009 to 2035.  Without a clean energy standard, GDP grows at 2.69 percent over the same time period. Including a cap on the price for clean energy credits and pairing the CES with strong energy efficiency standards significantly reduces the impact on electricity prices. These findings are not a surprise to those of us who know that clean energy is the best way to power our future. The Center for American Progress has previously advocated a strong clean energy standard with many of the same features as Bingaman’s proposal. But it also has a few important differences. Earlier this year, we laid out five characteristics that would define a successful clean energy standard: It must generate new, long-lasting jobs and grow the economy It must effectively spur development and deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies It must account for regional diversity in resources and electricity markets It must be simple and transparent, and minimize costs It must provide a floor not a ceiling for clean energy, strengthening and building on existing state leadership To reach these goals, our clean energy standard proposal includes policy tools like different clean energy requirements for different regions (accounting for regional diversity) and a tiered system that sets a specific target for certain renewable energy and energy efficiency targets, so that natural gas doesn’t dominate new investments. Spreading benefits across the country is critical. The EIA’s analysis finds that economic stimulus from the new infrastructure investments needed to shift our power system essentially balances out any cost to the economy from rising electricity prices.  But EIA finds that power price impacts vary across the country, and it’s important that places with increasing prices also see increasing stimulative investments. EIA’s analysis confirms that Senator Bingaman’s proposal is a serious step in the right direction. The United States would benefit if Congress moved forward with a clean energy standard. — Richard Caperton is Director of Clean Energy Investments at the Center for American Progress

Tags: clean energy economy, economy, feeds, global-warming, green, health, jeff-bingaman, media, november-2011, november-30, security

GayRussia has announced that the United Nations Human Rights Committee will consider denouncing Russia’s arrest of a woman for distributing “propaganda of homosexuality to minors” at its meeting next July. It would be the first time the U.N. has ruled against Russia over an LGBT issue.

Tags: author, barney frank, censorship, denounce-russia, economy, marriage equality, marriage-equality, november-2011, russia, thinkprogress, united nations, var-jplayerswf

I’ve mentioned that I’m on a hardcore Living Single kick (TVOne really needs to have a marathon so I won’t run through my DVR backlog every night), and it struck me that one of the reasons I love the show, in addition to its specificity on race and its Friends -without-the-dopiness vibe, is that Khadijah James reminds me a lot of Leslie Knope. First, there’s their collective hyper-competence — and exasperation when other people aren’t as committed as they are or up to their exacting standards. I’ve always appreciated the way that Leslie’s collective enthusiasm spills over to her friends and colleagues, turning Ann Perkins from a concerned citizen into a committed government employee (even if she was super-bossy about that final transition); inspiring everyone to reach for new heights to honor Lil’ Sebastian; convincing Ron to save her job even though on principal he’d love to see enthusiastic people like her get out of government and to see government wither away behind them. She gets so much pleasure out of work done right that she’s genuinely uncomfortable when someone like Ann isn’t as excited for or anxious about a job interview as Leslie herself is, and she can’t resist jollying along someone as terminally apathetic as April. Leslie is the rare television character who runs the constant risk of being annoying, but because she’s enthusiastic, rather than wacky. And she redeems herself by painting a vision so compelling everyone else wants to go along with it. She’s the rare female television character her show doesn’t feel the need to humiliate or cut down in any way. Leslie is allowed to be Wonder Woman. Or Diaphina. Take your pick. Khadijah’s less strange than Leslie — the entire universe of Living Single is more realistic and less hyper-real in the Parks and Recreation . But it’s cool to see her conquer the challenges of publishing (and it’s a nostalgic look back at the industry as it was more than a decade ago). In one episode, she’s working on a corruption story ( Living Single has really nice, smart roots in local government with Max’s side gig as city councilwoman) when her parent company forces her to hire an arrogant but brilliant reporter who wants the story for himself. She puts up with him turning in notes to her on candy wrappers, rolling into the office late, and generally mouthing off to her employees, but when he concocts a complicated scheme to get himself arrested to get close to a key source, she shuts him down and reports the story herself. When a rival magazine starts ripping off Flavor, there’s a great screwball sequence of Khadijah getting in trouble for taking down literally every flyer the competitor’s posted in New York City — she only got busted when she stole an absolutely enormous sign and lugged it all the way home. Khadijah’s more stressed than Leslie, but she also has to hustle harder than her Pawnee counterpart, who’s had several seasons of making governing look effortless. And again, the show walks a fine line between showing those struggles and cutting her down to size: an episode where she seeks therapy is genuinely touching and funny. Leslie and Khadijah are also not the most conventionally attractive women in the casts of the shows they’re on, but both shows are committed to the idea that they’re almost irresistibly sexy and romantically successful. It might have been easy to treat Leslie as Ann’s nerdier best friend in matters of the heart, but Leslie’s love life seems somewhat more successful than Ann’s does. And people tend to single her out as unusually attractive, whether it’s Jerry taking her as an accidental muse or Jean-Ralphio thanking his lucky stars he’s finally gotten a chance with her. Similarly, Khadijah could have ended up second fiddle to the romantic travails of Barbie-pretty Regine or skinnier Max (I appreciate the way she’s essentially a black female Jughead). Instead, men can’t resist her. Her reportorial rival at the Village Voice courts her even as she hustles past him to a blockbuster story. Grant Hill falls for her — and when she breaks his heart, Alonzo Mourning says he’d love to date her but hears she has a reputation for loving and leaving them. It’s just profoundly refreshing to have these shows see these very attractive, interesting women as they are, instead of assigning them pathetic places in the warped hierarchy that is Hollywood attractiveness. And it’s kind of depressing that across the media, female characters this complete and this undefeated are so rare.

Tags: author, donate, economy, ethics, health, intermission, islam, living-single, november-2011, parks-and-recreation, sexism, tweets

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund. Today over 100 economists from top universities, economic firms, counties, and other groups sent a letter to President Obama urging him to protect more national parks, national monuments, and wilderness areas . The signatories make the case that because the western United States is shifting from a resource extraction-based economy to one founded in tourism and the migration of Americans wanting to live close to wide open spaces, protected places are valuable economically. As the letter stated, “protected public lands are significant contributors to economic growth.” Ray Rasker, the executive director of Headwaters Economics, who holds a Ph.D from Oregon State University, further explained that: In the last 40 years, the fastest growth in the West has been in communities that are adjacent to protected public lands. It’s one of the West’s competitive advantages, it’s one of the strengths of the West, and investing in these sorts of public lands—the wilderness areas, the national monuments, the national parks—is a way to protect the competitive advantage of the west. This is what is creating jobs currently, and at a time when we have high unemployment, we need policies that create jobs . Watch it: There is a wide variety of jobs created from protecting public lands, many of which are detailed in the Center for American Progress’ recent report, “ The Jobs Case for Conservation .” These include outdoor guides, construction workers restoring trails and forests, manufacturers of outdoor goods like skis and hunting equipment, engineers, and park rangers, to name just a few. The Outdoor Industry Association notes that the outdoor recreation industry supports 6.5 million jobs and $730 billion in economic growth every year. ThinkProgress recently reported that a handful of House Republicans, such as Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), have denied that protecting the West’s special places has positive economic impacts. At a hearing last month, Bishop stated, “Contrary to claims by the administration and others, the designation of national monuments and wilderness are not a boon to local economies, but rather a detriment in most scenarios.” Additionally, members of the Congressional Western Caucus — a group made up entirely of Republicans — labeled the designation of national monuments and wilderness expansion as “ job-killing ” policies in a report last year.

Tags: donate, economy, feeds, health, jobs, monuments, november-2011, thinkprogress, tweets

For the past five months, American Crystal Sugar, the largest sugar beet producer in the country, has locked out 1,300 of its unionized workers in Minnesota who had the audacity to demand a fair contract with the company. Gov. Mark Dayton (D) has implored the corporation to renew negotiations, to no avail — instead of returning to the negotiating table, Crystal Sugar has hired replacement workers. Over the holiday season the workers “ struggle to survive ,” Dayton said, and “the lockout has devastated families, communities, and the economy in Northwestern Minnesota.” Desperate to get back to work but determined to stand by their principles, the workers have had prayer vigils with faith leaders in the community. But Crystal Sugar President and CEO Dave Berg apparently has absolutely no sympathy for his workers’ plight. In fact, at a recent meeting with shareholders, he compared them to a cancerous tumor : In a meeting of company shareholders on November 7 in Grafton, ND, Berg likened the workers to a 21-pound cancerous tumor . According to an audio recording of the meeting, Berg told the story of a sick friend who was diagnosed with cancer and had a massive tumor removed. “That’s a scary deal. He was sick for a long time,” said Berg. “ We can’t let a labor contract make us sick forever and ever and ever. We have to treat the disease and that’s what we’re doing here .” Workers have responded with disappointment and outrage . Sarah Gust, who has worked at ACSC for 40 years remarked, “The fact that Dave Berg would refer to our union, our contract as a cancerous tumor is deeply offensive to me and many of my co-workers. Some of us have had cancer or have lost loved ones to cancer. It’s a tragic, devastating disease. And that’s how Crystal Sugar management sees our union. I tell you, this just shows how much respect Dave Berg and the management have for us workers .” Listen to the audio here . Discussing his strategy for dealing with the union workers, Berg again used the analogy: “At some point that tumor’s got to come out. That’s what we’re doing.” Sadly, comparing unionized labor to cancer is nothing new amongst conservatives , who evidently believe workers shouldn’t be able to bargain for fair wages, benefits, and working conditions. Another locked out worker who has been with the company for 16 years said, “Our contract represents years of struggle to protect good jobs at Crystal and build a mutually respectful relationship with management. Now, Dave Berg is throwing all of that away for greed.” Gov. Dayton has made it clear that it’s ASC’s recalcitrance and attempt to squash labor for profit that’s preventing a solution. “It is time for American Crystal’s management to reach a fair agreement with its workers, who have contributed so much to the company’s current profitability,” he observed.

Tags: donate, economy, green, home page, labor, mitt-romney, november-2011, taxes, thinkprogress

Multi-year Arctic sea ice has been in precipitous decline in the last 30 years, as greenhouse pollution rapidly warms the poles. This striking infographic by Rupert Burton for the BBC shows the shocking collapse of the planet’s thermostat: (HT: Blue Marble )

Tags: 99-percent-movement, author, donate, economy, green, health, november-2011, sea-ice, war

Hugo , Marin Scorsese’s wonderfully humane adaptation of a young adult novel, may be one of the most moving films I’ve been to all year. Like Pixar masterpiece Ratatouille , Hugo is a movie about the recovery of the lost self through aesthetic experience. But it’s also a powerful testament to the need for meaningful work, something that resonated with me in particular in this moment. “I figures if the whole world was one big machine, I couldn’t be an extra part,” Hugo, the titular orphan and clock-keeper, tells his new friend Isabelle (who should play Valentine Wiggin to Asa Butterfield’s Ender in the upocoming Ender’s Game movie so these two immensely talented young people can work together again) as he shows her around the massive timepieces of Paris’s central train station. “I had to be here for a reason.” Work, whether it’s keeping the people who run the train station’s businesses on schedule, repairing the fiendishly complicated automaton his late father rescued from a museum storeroom, or finding a way to puzzle out the rigid station toy shop proprietor, give meaning to a boy who has been abandoned by a drunken uncle and the accident that claimed his father. “I don’t understand why my father died, why he left me alone,” Hugo cries to the station master, who wants to ship Hugo off to the same orphanage that raised him. “This is my only chance. To work.” We may not face the same dire circumstances as orphans in the pause between the World Wars — or filmmakers who have fallen out of vogue and been reduced to clever tinkering. But that doesn’t mean that the desire for work that is spiritually as well as materially sustaining is the stuff of fairy tales. One of the least attractive aspects of the calls, whether from Republican candidates or University of Pennsylvania students, for Occupy protestors to just get a job is that they assume that bread is not just available, but sufficient, and that roses are a part of the equation if not just for the 1 percent, for a smaller part of society. It may be right that in a readjusting economy controlled by increasingly larger companies, there are simply fewer deeply meaningful jobs available. Not everyone is going to work in a creative industry, or fight for the disadvantaged in court, or run a thriving small business that operates like a genuine family rather than a corporate facsimile of one. But that doesn’t mean that people don’t want to do work that feels in some way meaningful, and that they believe themselves not just qualified for but suited to. And even if economic reality is harsh, you’re not a flake to want those things and to strive for that sense of meaning. It may ultimately be easier to bridge financial gaps than emotional ones. But in Hugo , even the harsh station master finds there’s more pleasure in exercising discretion than there is in blind enforcement of the rules. Speaking of the station master, he’s played by Sacha Baron Cohen in one of his finest roles yet, here as an injured veteran of the great war, whose gait and heart have been stiffened by a brace on his left leg. In the projects he’s written, Baron Cohen is dedicated to exposing the absurdities of the 21st century, but he seems to be at his best, both here and in Sweeney Todd , playing relics of earlier eras. In Hugo , the smell of country-imported flowers and the strange beauty of the automaton return his humanity, and the inventive clockwork that gives him an improved leg reignites his hope for progress, and for love. Similarly, Mama Jeanne, the toymaker’s wife is restored to herself by the reminder of the creative life she left behind: time and circumstance may have robbed her of memories, but they cannot erase the fact of her fabulousness in a prior age. In the world of Hugo , a turn away from cinema after World War I (which impacted, if not stopped, the production of European films) is both a personal and societal tragedy. And Hugo argues forcefully that while movies can expose the tragedies of our time, they can remind us of the magic and miracles that surround-and help us dream our way into the future. Escaping into a world we’d like to live in for a few hours inevitably raises questions about the one we actually return to when we leave the theater.

Tags: author, economy, health, hugo, islam, lgbt, media, miley-cyrus, november-2011, tweets

Pastor Tom Brown is trying to recall El Paso mayor John Cook, as well as two of the city’s council members, for supporting domestic partnership benefits, which Brown has said would “ reward fornicators .” Cook tried to block the recall, arguing that Brown had used resources from his Word of Life Church to collect signatures for the recall petition, but a judge has allowed the recall —set for April 14 — to proceed. (HT: Joe.My.God. )

Tags: author, donate, economy, feeds, lgbt, marriage equality, november-2011, thinkprogress, var-jplayerswf